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31 May 2012

There are many ways to skin a cat, and the bench press is absolutely no exception. Given the fact that many of you were shamed into depression with the news that a 130 lb girl out-benches you, I was initially planning to start with her and work our way through some of the greats. Instead, I'm going to start with Rick Weil, who's got a lengthy but really insightful look at the bench press and methods for fixing failed attempts based on the part of the lift in which you fail. Before I do, however, I'll mention that I noticed two striking similarities between the approaches of the people I outlined today- one, they don't seem to be overly preoccupied with limiting their volume, and two, many of them have backgrounds in bodybuilding. I suppose that should come as no surprise, given that bodybuilders often list chest and arms as their favorite bodyparts to lift, but it's worth noting for those of you who eschew either or both. After you drink in the goodness that's below, perhaps you should consider the possibility that you're not doing enough volume or enough variety for your chest and arms to facilitate an optimal bench press. I'm sure that news is about as welcome as the teeth of a bath salt smoking homeless fucker's teeth on your cheek, but after reviewing the following programs and checking out their chest and arm development, you will probably agree.

Side note: I want to stab everyone over the use of any spelling but "flies" when referring to the exercise.

Rick Weil
In a time when an afro and a mustache didn't necessarily mean you raped small children in the bushes behind elementary school, Rick Weil had both, and wore them proudly. In spite of his incontrovertibly terrible taste in above-the-neck hair, Weil was a badass on the bench. The records he set in 1983 and 1986 at 165 (485 lbs) and 181 (556) have remained untouched since he set them, and he's within 9 lbs of the world record bench at 198 with his lift at 181. According to Powerliftinghub, "this is not only the record for the 181's but the biggest triple bodyweight unequipped bench press of all time across any weight division." In other words, when Rick Weil opens his mouth about the bench press, you should fucking take heed, because he's the Ed Coan of bench pressing and can likely bench more with his semi-erect penis than you can with your entire upper body.

Interestingly, he is not averse to reverse gripping, either. According to his post on Bodybuilding.com, "[he does] lift reverse grip, but never benched that way in competition. [He] did a lot of exhibitions reverse grip and actually did a 545 reverse in the gym. [He also] would do exhibitions with 505 for 5-6 reps." He was also a big fan of doing heavy negatives to increase your strength on the bench, though he cautioned that you should limit yourself to one or two singles at the end of a workout.(Critical Bench) Doing so will strengthen your ligaments and tendons, in addition to work with better form on lighter weights, because you'll be accustomed to handling much heavier poundages.

Weil, who appears to be something of an intellectual, broke down the bench press into four distinct parts: the approach, the drive, the push, and the lockout. Each of these distinct parts of the lift have their own issues, all of which Weil addressed with different assistance movements or techniques.

"The approach is the part of the lift where you bring the bar down to your chest. This is important because done properly it sets up the rest of the lift for hitting the groove. Remember to stay very tight during the approach, do not relax at your chest.The negatives will help here."

"When the bench command is given, the drive part of the lift begins. Practice pause benching in the gym because good habits are hard to break as well as bad habits. Also, injury can come from sloppy form, so always train as if a judge is watching. If you are stuck at your chest, perhaps you are forgetting a very strong and important body part at your disposal—your BACK. Remember the bench press is an upper body exercise and your back is part of your upper body. Powerlifters generally have very strong lats, so why not use them? With 135 on the bar, practice using your lats to drive the weight off of your chest. You do this by initiating a lat spread of sorts at the bottom of the lift. Trying is believing. It really works and with practice your lats will drive any weight off of your chest you would normally have been stuck with. Since powerlifters train their backs, only the lifters who strictly bench need to do special back exercises. I recommend doing lat pull downs and cable seated rows for building the muscles necessary for the drive part of the bench press. Those of you with strong backs need only to work the correct form, getting used to driving with the back."

"The push is that part of the lift between the drive and the lockout. Momentum is obtained from the lats in the drive, and then the front deltoids must take control. Front deltoids will move the weight, so train them as a separate body part. Steep incline presses will isolate the front delt if the bar is kept in close to your face and driven back towards the uprights. Seated dumbbell presses are not only great for the delts, but also one of my favorite exercises. This is performed seated straight up driving the weight with palms forward 3 sets of 5 reps on both of these exercises is plenty. Also only train them once a week. I have trained this way for three years, each body part once a week and made maximum gains on every cycle. This type of training also keeps injury to a minimum."

"Now we come to one of the most frustrating parts of the bench press, the lockout. I have seen many lifters miss what appeared to be an easy lift, right at the top. There are two reasons for missing a lift at lockout; fatigue, which can cause bad form, or not enough tricep strength. If your gym does not have a dip bar, tell the owner to get one. Weighted dips are the best exercise for lockout power available. Close grip benching puts too much strain on the wrists and hinders complete tricep movement. Doing weighted dips with heavy weight, however, will not guarantee a powerful lockout. Remember the other reason I stated for missing a lockout? Fatigue. I had pushed 3 sets of 3 reps with 285lbs in the weighted dips in training, yet I was having a lockout problem. After a lot of thought I realized my problem was not strength, but tricep fatigue. My triceps were pumping too fast. To correct this problem I dropped the weight on the bench after doing negatives, down to 405 and did reps until failure. By the time I could perform 10 easy reps, my sticking point was gone. Now, I am not saying you should drop to 405, but 80% of your maximum lift is a good place to start. For example the 400lb bench presser would start with 320 to 325ls and try that for a week or two."(Rick Weil Bench Press Routine)

Quite frankly, I don't know if that's a reprint from Weil's book, and article he one wrote for another publication, or something he did for Critical Bench, but it's informative as hell and a great primer for troubleshooting a piss-poor bench. For that reason, I started off this post with the mustachioed one. Now, onto a broad who could likely whip you silly and fuck you stupid.

Outbenches you, even in LA Gear hightops.

Jennifer Thompson
This broad hit 300 raw a couple of months ago in the hyper-critical USAPL, so you know there was a motherfucker out there with a micrometer and someone measuring the weight on the bar to the nanogram. After she lifted, she was polygraphed, strip-searched, beaten with reeds, polygraphed again, and then piss-tested for everything short of protein content. I'm sure even after all of that they chased her around screaming "liar!" at her and pelting her with rotten vegetables until her blood tests came back negative. Those motherfuckers are as unfun as they are men-out-of-time, since they would have been far more at home in early 20t Century Europe, when being a fascist made you cooler than Rob Van Winkle in "Cool As Ice". In any event, you know Thompson's lift is legit if it happened in a USAPL meet, and she claims to have hit 315 in a less-jackbooted meet at some point.

Thompson's approach is completely unique, from what I've seen. Instead of alternating speed and heavy days, she's got alternate speed and heavy weeks. According to Jennifer, "My heavy week involves static holds and heavy set work. My speed week uses bands and I work on my single max lifts. When I have a long period between competitions I do a 12 week workout that starts with exercises at 10 reps and works it way down to 5 reps. I use this to build up my base strength."(SPL) Interestingly, the weight isn't as important as the speed of the lift for Thompson, and she will "drop 10 to 15 pounds on that exercise and work on the speed of the lift" if she's not improving from workout to workout.(Ibid)

Her overall split looks like this:Day 1: Chest
Day 2: OffDay 3: Back, Biceps, and Calves
Day 4: OffDay 5: Shoulders and Triceps
Day 6: OffDay 7: Legs
Day 8: Off
*Abs are done as a warm-up on workout days.
(8-12 weeks on, then 1 week off. When restarting she simply lowers the weights and starts over.)(Thompson)

When was the last time you hit double bodyweight on your second attempt?

SPEED WEEKChestBench Singles (1 rep strict bench singles): 3 singles with 65%, 75%, and 85% of max
Increase one of your singles every lift if you get all 3Bench (with bands or chains): 3 sets of 5
Set up the bands or chains to add resistance to the top of the lift to increase your speed through the sticking point.Incline Bench: 2 sets of 5Decline Bench: 2 sets of 5Speed Bench Presses: 2 sets of 5Strict (long paused explosive rep) Flyes: 2 sets of 8Stabilizer Push-ups (Push-ups on a stabilizer ball or board): 2 sets to failure

Shoulders and TrisMilitary Press: 3 sets of 5Upright Rows: 2 sets of 8Side Lateral Raises: 2 sets of 8Dumbbell Shoulder Presses: 2 sets of 8Offload Bench Presses: 3 sets of 5 (Attach bands above the bar so that weight is taken off the bar at the bottom to help increase your transition into your triceps)Closegrip Bench: 2 sets of 8Tricep Extensions: 2 sets of 8Pushdowns: 2 sets of 8

Ted Arcidi
Certainly not the most svelte motherfucker on this list, Arcidi's been credited with being one of the greatest bench pressers in history. The records he set in the 275 and 308 weight classes have stood the test of time, and are at this point almost 30 years old. Sure, Jeremy Hoornstra beat Arcidi's 275 record, but bear in mind that Arcidi hit 650 at 275 and 666 at 308 in full meets, which have been known to be a bit more taxing than a leisurely bench-only meet. Arcidi's methods will likely look somewhat familiar to anyone who's done a periodized routine, although his rep scheme differs a bit, and one of his bench days per week was a simple 5 rep scheme and his volume would make most internet gurus start checking the blood pressure and cortisol levels of his family and friends for signs of second-hand overtraining. Additionally, although Arcidi was not a bodybuilder, he did rock abs at over 300 lbs, and went on to work in the WWE and WCWW and was Triple H and Chyna's strength coaches long before DeFranco erroneously got all the credit for Triple H's physique.

Jeremy Hoornstra
If there was ever a powerlifter who looked to be both good-looking enough and passably friendly to bang your girlfriend backstage while you were lifting at a meet, it's this motherfucker. Hoornstra broke Mike McDonald's 33 year old raw bench record at 242 with 661 press last month after nipping at its heels for a bit, and looks to have a long career of putting the record at 242 insanely out of everyone's reach ahead of him. Hoornstra competes in both bodybuilding and powerlifting, and sports arms big enough to make you consider heaving yourself off a fucking cliff. Don't believe me? Check out this pic, wherein he makes Sam Byrd look like a guy who did some pushups once.

Amusingly, Hoornstra's bench press routine is EXACTLY what you'd expect a bodybuilder's bench press routine. This is probably why half of us are getting out-benched by alleged bodybuilders on a regular basis. Surprisingly, it's not done on International Bench Press Day (Monday), nor is it followed by a bit of biceps, just to get a pump on before the club. Instead, Hoornstra's split is a two a day schedule that looks like this:

Biceps got their own day! I bet you fuckers didn't see that one coming. No stranger to volume, Hoornstra's throwing around a lot of weight for a shitload of reps with a variety of angles when he hits bench day, and rests no more than three minutes between sets. A typical workout looks something like this, but according to Hoornstra it varies greatly with his mood and enthusiasm:

If you thought that shit ran the gamut, that's because it did. I just covered four world record holders in the bench, and they had no common denomonator in their programs beyond the inclusion of the bench press. Telling, right? If you remain unconvinced that you're going to have to find your own path to Valhalla via the bench press, I've got another post coming up soon detailing the workouts of powerlifting legend Ed Coan, powerlifter-turned-Ms. Olympia-runner-up Bev Francis (holy shit her volume was off the charts), current multiple record holder Scott Mendelson, bodybuilder Eddie Robinson, and general freak of fucking nature Ken Lain.

Go bench, because somewhere a tiny blond haired chick is warming up with your work weight.

24 May 2012

Without question, the most maligned and simultaneously ballyhooed exercise on the planet is the bench press. I've taken a steaming shit on it over the years for one reason- I fucking suck at it. I'm fairly certain that is the reason most people trash talk the bench- it sucks to be so bad at the one exercise virtually everyone does. As such, you simply sidestep the conversation by decrying it as a pointless and useless feat of strength fit for naught but bodybuilders and sundry weightroom dilettantes. In the end, however, the people who yell most loudly about the uselessness of the bench press are probably the same guys masturbating to it like a pedophile at a McDonald's Playroom. They're looking at great benchers in the gym with jealousy on a level generally reserved for flat chested gold diggers when they spot a big tittied woman working a guy with an Amex Black. They hate the fuck out of themselves for sucking at the lift, but not enough to get fucking good at it, so they make excuses not to do so. It's time, however, for that shit to end- everyone needs to sack the fuck up and admit that if it's good enough for Dmitri Klokov, it's damn sure good enough for them.

You've disappointed Dmitri and his Uncle Hitler.

I suppose a great deal of most peoples' frustration stems from the fact that benching seems to come easy to some and not to others. I've come to the realization, however, that like everything else in the gym, big weights come to those who break their asses for them. If you suck at benching, it's your own fucking fault. I was a disgrace to my lineage at the bench press until what I thought was a shoulder injury (which ended up just being knotting) forced me to change my bench press style. I worked hard at learning the new form and experimenting with it because I had to, and I've become considerably less of an embarrassment to family and friends at the bench since..

THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD START REVERSE GRIPPING. This simply means that if you suck on the bench, you need to re-examine every single facet of the lift, including your grip width, your elbow flare, your arch, your foot placement, the bar path, the strike point on your body, the assistance exercises you do, and the number of times per week you train the lift and accessories. Over the last year, I've played with every possible permutation of my new form and frequency to arrive at what I think works best for me, and it's nothing whatsoever like 1) people would generally suggest, or 2) what I started with. Thus, this is one more instance wherein you'll stop taking advice from every half-assed guru on the planet and fucking figure it out for yourself. Know which form is the right form? The form that gets white-lighted at a meet and allows you to move the most weight. If it doesn't meet either of those criteria, you're fucking up. Again.

I'm glad you asked, nameless moron who make idiotic statements in public forums and likely cried themselves to sleep upon hearing of Donna Summers' death! Allow me to elucidate all of the reasons you should get good at the bench press.

Like it or not, the bench press is one of the most basic standards of measure for physical strength in the gym. It's a universally accepted measure of upper body strength for lay people and lifters alike, and it's consequently utilized everywhere you go, from the grocery store checkout line (I'm constantly asked by customers and employees how much I bench) to the NFL Combine to the gym. Thus, it doesn't fucking matter what the pencil-necked pussy on a message board thinks about the efficacy of this measure- it's the standard. Refusing to adhere to the standard would be like trying to pay for your Jamba Juice with back issues of Hustler- no matter how much better a measure of personal wealth you might think they are, you're fucking wrong.

The bench press is an event in one of the three most popular strength sports in the Western world. Sucking at it limits your ability to prove your mettle and compete in competitive sports that don't involve stupid pants played by people who are waiting to die.

Sucking at the bench press is generally evidence that you're either a woman or are considering becoming one, as it is again the most accepted measure of upper body strength, and upper body strength is associated with manliness. If you are a woman, consider this- kicking ass at an upper body lift like the bench makes you pretty much the top of the fucking food chain. Case in point: 132 lb natural female powerlifter Jennifer Thompson has benched 315 in a non-sanctioned meet, raw. That sound you're hearing is thousands of guys violently opening kitchen drawers in search of anything sharp with which to slit their wrists.

There are plenty of instances wherein you need to have the brutal strength necessary to violently shove objects away from your chest- never mind shit falling on you or holding up the car while someone changes a tire, fellas. Having a strong chest, shoulders, and triceps means you will fuck better. If you cannot envision how this is possible, you're either a virgin or retarded. In either case, just focus on the aforementioned reasons.

Arnold had a huge chest, and everyone revers Arnold. The bench press will give you a better developed chest, just like Arnold. Arnold benched often and he benched heavy (he hit 540 lbs at one point). Therefore, bench.

Now that we've got that ridiculousness out of the way, I'll address the fact that there is no universally perfect bench press form, no matter what anyone fucking tells you. If anyone argues, treat them as you would any noisome blight and cave in their head with a rock or hammer. To wit, some of the greats' form:

Rick Weil- Close grip, elbows flared, back totally flat. He holds world records at 165 and 181 that have stood for over 25 years.

The Barbarian Brothers- Ultra wide reverse grip, hard arch, wide foot placement. In this video, one of them hits 200kg for 5 bounced reps, and they both had 500+ lb benches for singles. Before you talk shit, consider the fact that none of you could get within shouting distance of that feat.

This discrepancy extends beyond the setup and execution of the competition bench, as well. The greatest benchers of all time have wildly different routines, in addition to different execution of the lift itself in training. Some of the best benchers I know, for instance, train with a touch-and-go method and the occasional massive bounced off their sternum. This includes two guys I know who bench over 500 and incline in the mid 400s. Additionally, they do all of their rep work with incomplete ranges, basically doing bottom-half reps throughout. This does not, however, prevent them from putting up big numbers when they try paused benches. For myself, I find that like Ken Fantano, I have to practice the paused bench to be good at it. If I practice touch and go in the gym, my form breaks down and I lose the tightness I need to move big weights. Other guys seem to find that the looser form yields greater strength when they apply it to strict form.

I could go on, but I think at this point it should be fairly apparent to those of you with developed nervous systems that there is no one golden bench press technique, and that anyone who claims to know of one is a fucking liar worthy of a full-on Islamic stoning. In the next installment, I'll cover the routines of some of the best benchers ever, so you can see how they in no way resemble one another, except for their utilization of the bench press and their total lack of excuses for why they don't do the lift.

21 May 2012

There were titties discussed at great length, a decent amount of training, and Phil from Ironradio sat in, high as shit on Percs. When I say high, I'm talking At one point, he says he wants to fuck Attila the Hun. This is good shit.

The pics we discussed are this:

and this.

You are welcome.

Mediafire for the nonstreamers.Incidentally, this took forever to compress at a lower bitrate and those of you who requested I do so should throw yourselves down a flight of steps onto a pile of broken glass.

17 May 2012

In the previous installments, I covered deadlifting in general and some of the greats' routines, all of which differed greatly except for two factors-consistency and volume. They all did a hell of a lot of pulling, and they did it regularly. You'll likely find, over time, that those two factors are evident in the lifestyles of any elite lifter, as they're really the only necessary factors for overall success in anything. I certainly don't put myself in the pantheon of lifters like Coan and Kuc, etc, but I'm not a bad deadlifter either. Of late, I've done no deadlifting because my focus has been on the squat, so I've had to come up with assistance exercises that will provide me with the necessary base of strength from which I can draw when I do finally step onto the platform to deadlift. As such, so it would stand to reason that my assistance exercises are the tits, sincethey seem to be working pretty well.

Before I jump into my favorite routines and assistance lifts, however, I'll mention that I agree with Louie Simmons on at least one thing- "deadlift" as much as you can every week. That's not to say you're actually going to deadlift, but you would be doing something to help your deadlift nearly every day. Chuck Vogelpohl was famous for hitting the gym 10-14 times per week, hitting abs every time and lats five times a week.(Simmons) He did this to build a base for deadlifting, and to keep his body conditioned to the incredible stress deadlifting puts on your body. Though I had no knowledge of his routine previously, he and I are pretty much two tits in a bikini top on this issue, since I do something similar. I do a combination of weighted and unweighted ab work at least 4x per week, upper back work in my morning workouts in the form of face pulls, pullups, high cable rows, or behind the neck pulldowns with a narrow grip, and hit back very heavily at least twice per week with one of the exercises listed below.

This is somehow relevant.

My Deadliest Deadlift Routines
Over the last 20 or so years, I've tried more permutations of programming than any neophyte could possibly imagine. Given that the deadlift was my pet exercise for the better part of those 20 years, I've more or less acted like Pepe LePiew with the deadlift, and have come up with more rape and stalking strategies (for the deadlift) than he did for cartoon broads. That is to say, a fucking lot of them. My favorite deadlift workout, though, would have to be one of the following two. The first was one i used religiously getting to a 500+ deadlift about ten years ago at a bodyweight of around 160, and the latter is one up with which I came in 2009 out of a combination of masochism and boredom.

To The Death (Deadlift Program 1)- assuming a 500 lb max
1x5x135
1x5x225
1x5x315
1x5x405
6-8 x 3-1 x 435-455 (I started with 435 for three and then added weight depending on whether or not I got the reps. Once I got to 455 I went until it got nearly impossible to finish a rep, which was around the 6th set.)
Max reps x 315 (My record was somewhere around 20, at which point I usually greyed out and slumped to the floor.)

Rest When You're Dead (Deadlift Program 2)- assuming a ~600lb max
1x1x135
1x1x225
1x1x315
1x1x405
Max x 1 x 515 in 30 minutes. On this one, I just deadlifted for exactly a half hour, pulling 85-90% of my 1RM as many times as I could. Occasionally I'd do doubles, and every now and again a triple. By the end, I think my record was 32 reps in 30 minutes, and I was cashed. Shortly thereafter I pulled 615 in an unsanctioned meet, which was a huge PR for me.

The Deadliest Assistance Movements
The following are my favorite accessory movements for the deadlift. I'm not going to get into the biomechanics of each, as doing so is generally the purview of people who fail to realize that the biomechanics are going to range from subtly to wildly different for each lifter based on their leverages, relative muscular strengths, and individual technique variations. You'll also note that the very same people who will babble on about the biomechanics of lifts are generally shitty lifters hiding behind textbooks. They're little more capable in terms of educating someone on the proper methods for completing an elite level lift than is a man who's read a shitload of carpentry books but barely touched a hammer would be if he were to educate you on the whys and wherefores of mansion construction.

What I do when selecting an accessory exercise is examine movements that resemble my main lift in whole or part and then incorporate that movement to shore up weak points and strengthen my overall support structure. This means I'm using my brain to determine for myself which exercise is best, rather than nitpicking pointless minutia and dithering over physiological and neurological responses to various loading protocols in sundry in angles to facilitate the greatest hypertrophy, or whatever it is people do rather than actually lift weights. Additionally, I will modify my form and range of motion on those assistance exercises to further compound the benefit derived therefrom, after, of course, a period of experimentation. The following are exercises I've found that help my deadlift of late. It is in no way a comprehensive list, nor any sort of a bible you should follow religiously, but it might give you some ideas.

Deadlifting doesn't always make you into a hideous, retarded-looking non-human.

In Order of Awesome...Shrugs/ Rack Pulls. Anyone who's seen me in person will tell you that the first thing they notice, aside from my astonishingly smashed nose and scarred face, are my traps. The mountains on either side of my ears have risen to their current state of awesome by the rigorous and religious application of shrugs. I could not love a human baby as much as I love shrugs. As such, I've embarked upon a neck holocaust the likes of which the world will never see again. I do these as a combination rack pull from knee height and shrug to get in extra pulling work, and I use my exact deadlift stance and grip width. I always use straps on these, however, and pull double overhand. Before you scream "That's bullshit!", simmer the fuck down and consider the following:

I have tiny little rat claws for hands

I have no interest in joining Diesel Crew

I use Spud straps, which effectively make this a fat bar pull

Powerlifting doesn't have a fucking grip event

I've never failed a pull because of my grip

Any time you see someone decrying the use of straps on a heavy pull, it's jealousy motivating his comments. Make no fucking mistake about that. Thus, make like a hot broad in some sissy porn and strap it the fuck on.Recommended rep range: 2-10. Singles are more for fun than anything else on traps, and anything over 10 is cardio.

Ladies is pimps, too.

Bent Row. I've done a wide array of bent over rows over the years, and recently have started doing what some would call a Pendlay row and what others will nitpick to death. I could care less what you fuckers call it, but this is the form I've found to be most beneficial for the deadlift. If you're not interested in watching the video, the lift begins and ends on the floor. I take exactly the stance and grip width I'll use on deadlifts, then pull the bar like I'm trying to rip it through my solar plexus into my spine and then essentially drop it to the floor. In doing so, I use as little upper body motion as possible with the maximum weight possible. The key here is that violence plus heavy weight equals awesome. I've found this has helped my pull from the floor tremendously, and I regard pretty much any weight on the deadlift under 600 with utter contempt since I've begun doing these on a regular basis. Bent rows are to Olympic lifters and powerlifters what Coco Austin is to both black and white men- beloved by all. They're also one of the mainstays of the much ballyhooed Coan/Phillippi program, if you need more convincing.Recommended rep range: 1-5. I generally stick with triples, but there's something to be said for the occasional single.

Zercher Squats. Interestingly, this is one of Louie Simmons' pet lifts, and he's even built a harness with which to do these so his lifters with bicep tears can rock out with their cocks out (or if they're chicks, their baby cocks). These definitely build upper back strength, in addition to beating on your abs they're trash cans in "Stomp". I do these out of the rack or off the pins, depending on my mood, and have taken to calling partial Zerchers off the pins "Tombstones"... I guess due to the fact that they make me feel like I've going to fucking die, and because it mimics the action of ripping a tombstone out of the ground with your bare hands.Recommended rep range: 1-4. I despise doing these for reps, mostly due to the fact that it's hard to breathe. By the end of a repalicious set, they're about as anaerobic as can be, because I'm definitely ready to pass the fuck out.

Stiff-Leg High Pull. I love these and do them every so often, although I think I started doing them based on a misunderstanding of an exercise description in an article I can no longer find. In any event, these definitely seem to transfer into a shitload of explosiveness off the floor, and they didn't hurt my knee when my patello-femoral tendonitis was acting like a bastard. As such, I hammered the fuck out of these for a while, to seemingly good effect. Like the aforementioned exercises, I used the same stance and grip width as my deadlift, then with more legs more or less straight pulled the bar as violently as I could, as high as I could. My goal here was to increase my break speed off the ground, in addition to strengthen my upper back to compensate for the end of my deadlift, when my shoulders round and my legs are nearly locked out.Recommended rep range: 1-3.

Does this defy virtually everything you've ever read about deadlifting? Probably. Are fucks given? Definitely not. As I stated above, most of the articles you read about training are written by know-nothings who lift nothing. The preceding is what's worked for me, so it might work for you as well. With luck, you'll use your deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills to synthesize all of the information in this series of posts and come up with something unique that works for you.

You're not a fucking gingerbread man, so stop using cookie-cutter routines, fuckface.

12 May 2012

If you guys hadn't noticed, I've been breaking my ass coming up with content of late, and I'm taking the weekend off. As such, I'm giving you new content that isn't terribly time consuming. Additionally, I get dozens of emails asking for more recommendations. As such, those of you who don't like that shit can suck my fucking dick. The bands are the tits.

Recognize- Revenge. Recognize brings together the best of a couple of genres- toughguy hardcore, deathcore, and old-school two-step Hatebreed style moshbros-core. They're in a weird hiatus status waiting for people to give them money to restart as a band or somesuch nonsense, and quite frankly, they're a worthy charity. This shit is the truth- it's a bunch of pissed-off, face tatted, apparent Satanists playing misogynistic moshcore. Witness:

Recon- Hell. For those amongst you who are long in the tooth like myself and 1990s hardcore kids, you'll likely remember the straightedge hardcore badasses One King Down and their epic dancefloor destroying song "Bloodlust Revenge". Their original vocalist was Rob Fusco, who's returned to hardcore to break shit and melt faces in Recon. Recon had a couple of horribly recorded previous releases that would have been great save the shit-poor leveling, but on this one they added a badass vocalist who actually competes in powerlifting and managed to figure out ProTools on this one. The result was a cd dripping with breakdowns, digital bass booms, and harder than Clint Eastwood lyrics. If you like Recon but prefer more Hatebreed-esque vox, check out Recon's Hell disc.

This.

Structures- Divided By. When I write, I generally listen to mathcore, which will likely surprise a lot of you. The lack of groove in mathcore suits my writing style, as I write in short bursts as a general rule. In any event, I recently happened across this band, and discovered that not only are they awesome for writing, but they bring the mosh enough to suit my needs when training as well. If you're not a fan of the aforementioned bands, you might want to give this a try. If you're not a fan of the aforementioned tits, you're not human.

World Of Pain- World Of Pain. Combine the styles of Recognize and Recon, make the lyrics even tougher, and add in one of the singers from Billy Club Sandwich on one of the songs. This is the best shit I've heard since Shattered Realm's first LP. Epic fucking breakdown at 1:45. I've been playing this in constant rotation since I first bought it, and if you've any sense at all, you will too. Adds at least 100 testosterone points per song.

I can't stop posting pics of Alice Goodwin. Bear with me.

Your Own Destroyer. I have to admit that I have a terrible weakness for rapcore, and this band is by far and away the most ridiculous entry into that genre. They combine elements of deathcore, OLC-style wiggerishness, and rap in ways that are awesome beyond any reasonable expectation. Most of you will probably hate the shit out of this band, but fuck you- this shit is fucking amazing, in spite of the fact that their singer may be wearing an insulin pump. He's fat as shit.

Stout- Sleep Bitch. I saved the worst recorded and most hilarious for last. Stout's an anachronism the likes of which I've not seen before. They're basically a throwback to Bulldoze and Boxcutter, half shouting and half rapping. Their lyrics are fucking incredible:

Sleep.Count bodies not sheep.

Go to sleep little creeps.

Nighty night bye-bye.

It's a thin line don't deviate,

you're dancing with the devil and you're playing with fate,

you don't know me,

not the me that was the me that is I'm the noxious gas that will kill your kids,

lay them on their backs,

turn their souls to black,

in the small of my back the Pachmayr's packed,

to help you with those Z's 45 ACP.

The Sandman cometh it's time for sleep.

Sleep bitch, sleep bitch, sleep.

You can't make this shit up. Download it here and try not to kill yourself laughing.

Next week, I'll finish up the deadlifting series and try to bust out something content laden.

06 May 2012

In the inaugural article for Chaos and Bang (which I'm reposting), we're going to review our favorite martial arts movies of all time. We've got no real criteria for this, other than the fact that they have to be considered martial arts movies, and for this one, won't be weapons-based. As such, no Zatoichi films and no Jeff Speakman up in this motherfucker, may his mullet be praised. Paul and Jamie have somewhat different background in the fighting arts, as Jamie fucked about in TKD (as did most of us) for a couple of years before abandoning it for wrestling, followed by jeet kune do and then judo and mixed martial arts. Paul, on the other hand, trained in Ninjutsu, (Togakure) Kenpo, and Krav Maga . Where we converge is that we both love awesome, and by awesome we mean dripping with testosterone and does not in any way involve Ang Lee.

Fuck Ang Lee.

Jamie's Ultimate Chop-Socky Playlist

Fist of Legend. Without question, the greatest kung-fu film of all time. FOL stars a somewhat young Jet Li in his best-received role. In FOL, he plays fictional Chinese historical figure Chen Zhen, a guy who's a blend of Chinese masturbatory material and anti-imperialist Fong Sai Yuk and a student of vaunted Chinese martial artist Huo Yuenjia to become the ultimate Chinese folk hero. This movie's actually a remake of Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection, and was used as the basis for a sequel/remake starring Donny Yen in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, which gets honorable mention for being fucking awesome. In any event, this is Jet Li at his best- right from the giddy-up, he's breaking limbs and cracking skulls, and culminates in his utter destruction of the largest Japanese man since Sonny Chiba was last seen on screen in the bloodiest Jet Li battle ever. Given that his battles are never bloody, this means there were a few trickles of blood, which makes this the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of Jet Li films.

This movie's awesome for a couple of reasons- one, minimal wirework. There's nothing more annoying than watching a couple of tiny Chinese people skip through the treetops and occasionally bounce off each other in what's more of a homosexual interpretive dance than a fistfight. Two, first use of a belt as an ass-kicking device in a film. Without this film, Jason Statham would have half of his fight scenes cut out of the Transporter series and would be reduced to perhaps whipping people in the eyes with his suspenders. Three, it features almost none of the wushu bullshit you see in modern Chinese films, and seems to utilize a fair amount of wing chun techniques mixed with western boxing against traditional Chinese and Japanese styles. This must be an homage to Bruce for his work in the Chinese Connection, as Chen Zhen seems to espouse JKD without naming it as such. Four, training montage, motherfucker, with a full on Rocky-running-through-the-streets scene. Finally, there's minimal bullshit and maximal asskicking, so you can watch it without having to wash the shame off you like you did after waking up at the end of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. If' you've not seen this film, punch yourself in the fucking face. Starring little known Hong Kong martial artist Louis Fan, Riki-Oh's an adaptation of a Japanese manga by the same name. The plot of Riki Oh is the same as half of the pit-fighting movies of the 1990's- dude's girlfriend gets whacked by local crime boss, boyfriend avenges, evil corporations/corrupt legal system put him in jail, he must fight to survive. That, my friends, is where this motherfucker goes right off the rails. Riki's blessed with inhuman strength, which he uses to kill the Double Dragon style bosses in hilarious and awesomely gory ways. Riki punches a dude so hard his eye pops out, ties his own hand back on by connecting veins and tendons with his teeth, gets strangled by a guy with the guy's own intestines, sees a guy crush another dude's head with his bare hands (which was a meme on the Daily Show before that retard Kilbourne quit the show), and stuffs an extra from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers into a giant meat grinder.

This movie's more fun than having a preacher's daughter lick your asshole while playing Call of Duty and getting fellated by a toothless whore at a live GWAR show in Rio during Carnivale. Seriously, watch this movie- it was the first movie to get rated NC-17 in Hong Kong without showing any graphic sex.

The Raid: Redemption. I managed to see this movie in the one week it showed in the festering shitlhole referred to by local Alabamians as "Birmingham". While watching this movie I gained a solid pound of muscle mass and afterward I had a hardon for three straight days. This is the ultimate action movie- boatloads of non-cgi gore, broken bones, incredibly hyperkinetic hand-to-hand and non-firearm fight scenes, and a hell of a lot of shooting. The movie features what is for many a little known style of martial arts called Pencak Silat, which is actually a redundant term that refers to all of the Indonesian martial arts. While a bit flashy, they're practical enough to earn Paul's seal of CCQ approval and the weapons scenes make the ultra-awesome Rob Zombie vehicle House of 1000 Corpses seem tame by comparison.

If you're curious about the plot, it's pretty simple- an Indonesian SWAT team tries to raid a MOVE/New Jack City style slum fortress, only to get trapped inside and have to fight their way out. In short, just about everyone shown on screen dies in spectacular, bloody fashion. This pic's slated to become a trilogy and to get an American remake, so you might as well check it out ASAP so you're up to speed when the rest of them come out. This shit is going to be like Harry Potter, only without all of the pussy bullshit. I suppose, then, it'll be nothing whatsover like Harry Potter, as these movies will actually increase the size of your dick, rather than transforming it into a bloody vagina. Players of quiddich should not watch this, and probably should consider various creative ways to end their lives for bringing shame upon their families.

Out For Justice. In the 1990s, there were exactly two names in martial arts films- Van Damme and Seagal. On the one hands, you had a guy that meshed the best of 1980s chop-socky flicks with Stallone's physique, the splits, and a terrible Bruce Lee impression, and on the other you had a NYC guido with a ponytail and a penchant for breaking bones and throwing people over counters and through walls. They both had their place, but most people would agree that Steven Seagal's films were, at their peak, totally unfuckingtouchable. Seagal's best three films involved so much gratuitous violence and gore that they were practically horror films, and they made Van Damme's attempts look PG by comparison. The best of Seagal's films was, by far, Out For Justice, if only for one scene. In it, Seagal drops a cue ball into a bar towel and proceeds to knock out teeth and break bones, as only 1990s Seagal could. Best of all, he mocks the shit out of the mooks he's beating as he does so, making the scene both hilarious and erection-worthy.

The plot is essentially that Seagal is chasing a coked up gangster-wannabe around NYC, throwing people through windows and beating them bloody in the process. Oh, and he saves a puppy. If nothing else, OFJ deserves note for being the only thing in history to lend credence to aikido as a fighting style. Additionally, "Sticks" in the above scene was none other than Dan Inosanto, Bruce Lee's most famous and successful student. If you're still underwhelmed, Seagal's actually been credited with coaching Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida to knockout victories in the UFC, and he's married to an actual Mongol, which is fucking awesome. Although Seagal's fight scenes eventually devolved into him flailing his arms in front of the camera like a basketball player in one of their epic "thug" slap "fights", Seagal in his prime was about one thing- kicking ass like he was a donkey herder on a timetable.

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. Boasting that same total disregard for the health of their extras as the Raid, Ong Bak features Tony Jaa wrecking shop using Muay Boran, and ultrahard style abandoned in modern times for the much more sensitive style Muay Thai. I'll admit the plot is fucking retarded (a guy living in the jungle travels to the big city to battle crime lords for trinkets stolen from his village) and the music sounds like whales raping each other, but the fighting is pretty much second to none and the stunts gave Jackie Chan a hardon. When Jackie Chan's impressed by your stunt work, you know you're the shit.

Filled with elbows to the face that clearly connect, a ridiculous jump through a cart filled with knives, ridiculous chase scenes, and Tony Jaa jumping off shit and landing on top of people while leading with his knees, this movie probably had more insurance claims filed in its making than any other film ever. That's including the Wizard of Oz, wherein the midgets apparently went berserk while drunk, raped some broads, and torched the movie set. Although you'll likely feel a strange compulsion to slam the point of your elbow into the crown of your neighbor's skull for stepping on your grass for the rest of your life, this film definitely needs to be in your collection.

Those are testicles in his hand.

Honorable Mention:Street Fighter- Sonny Chiba works out on a Marcy Trainer (Bruce Lee style) and rips a rapist's cock and balls off with his bare hands, then shows it to the guys and disgustedly wipes off his hand on the dude's shirt, and rips out another guys trachea. Nuff' said.Bloodsport- Van Damme's finest work. Monkey kung fu, Bolo Yeung, and splits.No Retreat, No Surrender- Imagine Karate Kid + breakdancing and Van Damme as Johnny. Yeah, it's that good.Transporter 2- The best of the series, features a fairly hot broad and Jason Statham's best fight scenes prior to Safe.The One- Statham and Jet Li in a movie that doesn't blow dogshit (like Chaos did) but unfortunately does not feature Kyokushin champ Dolph Lundgren.

You'll note there's no Jackie Chan and no Bruce Lee. This is because Jackie Chan's movies have great stunts but shit fighting and G-rated plots, and Bruce's movies were great in their day but pale in comparison to modern films. I'm sure that raises some hackles, but as always, feel free to go fuck yourself- I'm right and you're wrong.

Paul's Top Martial Arts Movies

Much like our training, mine and Jamie's picks for Martial Art movies run pretty opposite ends of the spectrum in some ways, and not so much in others.

I had to dig deep for this. Mainly because I have become very fastidious and critical about what I really like from a movie perspective. So most martial arts movies have become too cliché for me.

Nevertheless, I watched more martial arts movies in my youth than Jamie has jacked off this week. So I will draw upon my dense database of martial arts movies that I remember loving and go from there.

Rapid FireI was a huge Brandon Lee fan. I thought he was doing a very amicable job of picking up the legacy of movie making left by his father, Bruce. Everyone knows the "best" movie he did was The Crow, however that was not a martial arts movie. Rapid Fire was. And as a kid I must have watched this movie 10,169 times. This particular scene was quite funny because he kept beating the shit out of these two guys by using doors.

Brandon plays Jake Lo, a student who witnesses a murder between two rival drug lords. Jake is took into protection to make sure he stays alive long enough in order to testify. You've heard and read this one before I'm sure. He ends up getting framed, so Jake has to beat the shit out of some people do some outrageous shit to help clear his name. And that's where the fighting comes in......

Revenge of the NinjaI have watched this movie since I was a kid, and it is utterly ridiculous in so many ways. From Sho's family getting killed by a Ninja clan for what seems like, no reason at all, to the quote that "only a Ninja can stop a Ninja", it's truly a grade B piece of shit. There's even a scene where Sho and his cop friend go out to a children's playground to talk to some former convicts, to get a lead on a robbery.

Why are ex-cons hangout out at the fucking play ground? I'm not making this shit up. Not only that, but in that particular scene, both the cop and Sho beat the shit out of each convict about 18 times, because there is a fight scene, then a cut scene back to the other guy fighting, so forth and so on. It's fucking ridiculous.

With that said, it was still responsible for my love of Ninja's and martial arts through my youth, and the score for the movie is still epic. There is also hot tub scene with great big tittays. And what's wrong with great big tittays in a hot rub? Nothing.

The Perfect WeaponI saw this flick in the movies based off nothing but the cardboard pop up. I remember being blown away at how fucking awesome Speakman was, and how they laid out his Kenpo training. Of course, this made me want to take Kenpo really bad, so when I moved from Mississippi to Louisiana and found out there was a Kenpo school just up the road from me, I was on it.

The great thing about Kenpo is that it's a soft style martial art, meaning the defender uses the attackers momentum or force against them, or to the defenders advantage. This was the first time I had really seen this put into action this particular way, even though I realized later I had seen many examples of soft styles before. For me however, the way Speakman incorporated into this flick really made it stand out. His mullet, while miniature, also stood out as well.

Speakman is basically just a "dude" who goes home to see his old friend, only to find out he's been thrown under the bus in a racketeering type business and can't get out. Speakman of course, is going to go around town forcing rusty trombones on people until someone coughs up who is doing this is and why.

There are two really awesome fighting scenes in this movie for me. The first one is in the store, where the guy splits Speakman's stick in half. The look on his face of "thanks for doing me that favor" is priceless. The second one was the one where he went into the dojo, and fought three guys. Lucky for me, this clip basically covers the whole movie!

Above the LawJamie picked Out For Justice, but to me, Above the Law was Seagal's best movie, and I must have watched it 324 times, which coincidentally is what Seagal was weighing in at for some time. The actual movie was pretty good, which is saying something for ol Stevie, since he made some fucking whoppers in his time. And by whoppers, I mean the most horrid shit ever put on "direct to DVD". And by the most horrid shit ever put on "direct to DVD" I mean....well you get it.

In Above, Seagal is a cop (no fucking way?) in Chicago who has a shady CIA past. He's trying to put away some drug dealings that ends up having ties to his past, and there's the majority of your plot. But Above the Law was really solid. And much like The Perfect Weapon, the appearance of the mullet was inevitable.

Enter the DragonWithout a doubt the best Bruce Lee movie of all time. And interestingly enough, for a bit of trivia, it was Lee's only English speaking movie. I agree with Jamie that this movie pales in comparison to more modern day martial arts movies, but I put it into mine because it is such a classic and I felt like it would suck to leave it out.

Lee is hired by the British government to participate in a martial arts tournament on this Island Fortress, so he can investigate a possible slave ring/trade that is going on there. Lee learns that the dude hosting this event is also responsible for his sisters death, and now we have a vehicle.

The most classic scene from the flick is the one where Bruce fights his sisters actual murderer, O'Hara. The opening bitch slapping sequence is one of my fave scenes of all time.

Honorable Mention:

No Retreat No Surrender: Jamie stole this from me. Let me say what you really need to do, is get high as fuck and watch this movie. You will never EVER be more entertained in your life.

Cyborg Beyond terrible movie with Jean Claude God Damn, however there is a fight scene up in an abandoned building that is pretty fucking mint. And by pretty fucking mint I mean the choreography in it was pretty first rate for a shitty ass B movie with no movie and no names and no-idea-if-it-was-direct-to-dvd....movie.

Undisputed II Michael Jai White and Scott Adkins in a Russian prison where a martial arts tournament is taking place. That's your flick. Adkins is retardedly talented and personally I thought them letting the "good guy" (White) beat him was pretty fucking stupid. Sorry for the spoiler, but it's not like it's Schindler's list.

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